one knows. Insights into this question seem relevant to the nature of
mind and reality.What is the relation between so-called reality and our perception and
understanding of it? The standard view given to us thus far by our sci-
entific observations and theorizing is that there is a world, a universe,
existing independently of our awareness of it. Astrophysics provides
a creation scenario, a story of the origin of our universe—a “big bang”
estimated to have occurred 13.7 billion years ago, setting in motion
processes that eventually resulted in the formation of the chemical el-
ements and the coalescing of our galaxy, sun, and solar system.
Our planet Earth is just the right distance from our sun to produce
conditions conducive to the presence of life: a habitable zone where
it is not too hot and not too cold. Water, the elixir and canvas of life,
is able to exist as a temperate liquid—not frozen ice and not boiling
vapor. Large molecules and molecular aggregates—proteins, nucleic
acids, phospholipid bilayer membranes—the components of life as we
know it, can form and remain stable. So our creation story concludes
from the data thus far that life somehow appeared on Earth and then
evolved over billions of years into its present multiple forms.
There are questions. How did life first originate on Earth? One
guess is that small RNA molecules somehow formed in the primordial
soup and that such molecules were capable of replicating and catalyz-
ing chemical reactions. This could give rise over time to the formation
of stabilized, energy-using, replicating systems—life as we know it.
But some say the formation of such primordial biological struc-
tures is so unlikely that it wouldn't be expected to happen, even given
billions of years of molecular mixing. Some say that life on Earth must
have been transplanted from elsewhere in the cosmos, perhaps via the
impact of a comet bearing spores, seeds, cells, or other components of